When we moved to Las Vegas from Chicago, we noticed a lot of differences. One of the largest differences was the fact that the sun shines in Las Vegas almost all the time. In the Midwest, with the humidity, it can be gray a lot of the time. Especially in the winter.

We lived in buildings when we were in Chicago, so we didn't have the opportunity to even entertain installing solar. When we remodeled our home in Nevada, we thought about it. I did the math, and it didn't pay. It was a ten to fifteen-year payback based on our usage and the prevailing electricity rates.

For what it is worth, I had seen a lot of early-stage venture deals in solar, and none of them worked without heavy taxpayer subsidies. Robert Bryce has an excellent Substack blog on energy. Solar is not energy dense. It's expensive. It's not economical when you total up all the costs and opportunity costs relative to other forms of power generation.

The federal government heavily subsidized solar, and I redid the math. It was a five-year payback. We figured we'd be in the house for five more years. I checked with some realtors in our area, and they said that if you own the solar, you will break even if you sell your home. The problem is when people lease solar. New buyers are stuck with contracts they didn't negotiate.

I am glad the government ended the subsidies. Make solar compete. That will bring the cost down faster and create better innovation than a subsidized market.

We decided to go with Tesla because we wanted the security of a national brand. They have been relatively easy to work with. Their installers were pretty professional. We put in as large a system as NV Energy would let us put in. It's just over 13.8GW. In Nevada, you can only put in 98% of your total usage. The reason must be grid balance, but if we truly had a global warming emergency with solar as the answer, you'd think they'd let you install as much as you wanted.

We also lease a Tesla Model 3 and have been happy with it. We use it for around town and charge it using our solar. For longer over-the-road trips, we have a diesel. My wife did take the Tesla to Phoenix, but she had to stop at a supercharger to charge. It's less convenient than a gas station but similar.

After it was installed, we had to pay a contractor to put screening around the solar panels to keep the pigeons out.

Recently, we installed a Tesla battery system. This system is designed to be able to power our entire home in case of an outage. Fortunately, Las Vegas never has outages. The casinos make sure there is plenty of power! If we are gone for an extended period of time, we never have to worry about power and systems in our house on the rare occasion that power goes out. Here is what the finished product looks like. At night, the Tesla logo glows, so it looks kind of cool.

My system has two batteries and an expansion pack.

In October, we put the battery system in. Next year, we will see how my energy generation changes and if having an entire backup battery system changes anything. This is what I did last year.

Even though you might assume I am negative on solar based on what I have written and based on any objective data you can find, I am not. There is a place for it. I don't think there is a place for wind.

Here are some situations where I think solar can work.

1. In a tightly controlled, dedicated system. My house is a good example. But, if I lived in Chicago, the odds of solar working to power all my needs are not likely. Solar works where the sun shines a lot. On rare occasions when it is cloudy in Vegas, or in the winter when the angle and time the sun is in the sky change, I notice a difference in power generation. I have two small cabins in the north woods of Minnesota, and I thought of putting solar on them. However, the economics do not work since our local cooperative utility doesn't pay much to buy solar from you when you generate it.

2. When you need to generate power tomorrow, solar is a good option. As soon as it is installed, it works. Contrast that with the time it takes to build any energy generation plant or dam. I am a big fan of nuclear power, and the US needs to build many, many nuclear power-generating facilities. In the meantime, installing solar on homes and businesses would create immediate power generation while we waited for the plants to be built and come online.

Solar doesn't work in large-scale installations out in the middle of nowhere. It takes too much energy to transmit any power that the field generates. Birds mistake it for a lake and die or get incinerated. Fresh water is needed to clean the dust off the panels. We need to abandon that notion. Solar isn't scalable. It's great for focused use.

In the case of things like data centers, I think the companies that want to build them could strike a Coasean bargain. The companies could go to communities and pay for solar and battery installation on homes and businesses. It would be free to the homeowner and the business. When the company builds the data center, electricity rates for homeowners and businesses should be unaffected. In a place like Nevada, you could also build them over parking lots. Of course, this idea only works where the sun shines a lot.

One of the hurdles to building data centers is the fear of a spike in the cost of electricity.

However, in the future that I see shaping, having a large electrical grid with more capacity than we think we need is essential. Robots, AI, Quantum computing, EVs, and all the innovations that are happening rely on it. Solar can be a very small piece of the solution in situations where it can work.

When we moved to Las Vegas from Chicago, we noticed a lot of differences. One of the largest differences was the fact that the sun shines in Las Vegas almost all the time. In the Midwest, with the humidity, it can be gray a lot of the time. Especially in the winter.

We lived in buildings when we were in Chicago, so we didn't have the opportunity to even entertain installing solar. When we remodeled our home in Nevada, we thought about it. I did the math, and it didn't pay. It was a ten to fifteen-year payback based on our usage and the prevailing electricity rates.

For what it is worth, I had seen a lot of early-stage venture deals in solar, and none of them worked without heavy taxpayer subsidies. Robert Bryce has an excellent Substack blog on energy. Solar is not energy dense. It's expensive. It's not economical when you total up all the costs and opportunity costs relative to other forms of power generation.

The federal government heavily subsidized solar, and I redid the math. It was a five-year payback. We figured we'd be in the house for five more years. I checked with some realtors in our area, and they said that if you own the solar, you will break even if you sell your home. The problem is when people lease solar. New buyers are stuck with contracts they didn't negotiate.

I am glad the government ended the subsidies. Make solar compete. That will bring the cost down faster and create better innovation than a subsidized market.

We decided to go with Tesla because we wanted the security of a national brand. They have been relatively easy to work with. Their installers were pretty professional. We put in as large a system as NV Energy would let us put in. It's just over 13.8GW. In Nevada, you can only put in 98% of your total usage. The reason must be grid balance, but if we truly had a global warming emergency with solar as the answer, you'd think they'd let you install as much as you wanted.

We also lease a Tesla Model 3 and have been happy with it. We use it for around town and charge it using our solar. For longer over-the-road trips, we have a diesel. My wife did take the Tesla to Phoenix, but she had to stop at a supercharger to charge. It's less convenient than a gas station but similar.

After it was installed, we had to pay a contractor to put screening around the solar panels to keep the pigeons out.

Recently, we installed a Tesla battery system. This system is designed to be able to power our entire home in case of an outage. Fortunately, Las Vegas never has outages. The casinos make sure there is plenty of power! If we are gone for an extended period of time, we never have to worry about power and systems in our house on the rare occasion that power goes out. Here is what the finished product looks like. At night, the Tesla logo glows, so it looks kind of cool.

My system has two batteries and an expansion pack.

In October, we put the battery system in. Next year, we will see how my energy generation changes and if having an entire backup battery system changes anything. This is what I did last year.

Even though you might assume I am negative on solar based on what I have written and based on any objective data you can find, I am not. There is a place for it. I don't think there is a place for wind.

Here are some situations where I think solar can work.

1. In a tightly controlled, dedicated system. My house is a good example. But, if I lived in Chicago, the odds of solar working to power all my needs are not likely. Solar works where the sun shines a lot. On rare occasions when it is cloudy in Vegas, or in the winter when the angle and time the sun is in the sky change, I notice a difference in power generation. I have two small cabins in the north woods of Minnesota, and I thought of putting solar on them. However, the economics do not work since our local cooperative utility doesn't pay much to buy solar from you when you generate it.

2. When you need to generate power tomorrow, solar is a good option. As soon as it is installed, it works. Contrast that with the time it takes to build any energy generation plant or dam. I am a big fan of nuclear power, and the US needs to build many, many nuclear power-generating facilities. In the meantime, installing solar on homes and businesses would create immediate power generation while we waited for the plants to be built and come online.

Solar doesn't work in large-scale installations out in the middle of nowhere. It takes too much energy to transmit any power that the field generates. Birds mistake it for a lake and die or get incinerated. Fresh water is needed to clean the dust off the panels. We need to abandon that notion. Solar isn't scalable. It's great for focused use.

In the case of things like data centers, I think the companies that want to build them could strike a Coasean bargain. The companies could go to communities and pay for solar and battery installation on homes and businesses. It would be free to the homeowner and the business. When the company builds the data center, electricity rates for homeowners and businesses should be unaffected. In a place like Nevada, you could also build them over parking lots. Of course, this idea only works where the sun shines a lot.

One of the hurdles to building data centers is the fear of a spike in the cost of electricity.

However, in the future that I see shaping, having a large electrical grid with more capacity than we think we need is essential. Robots, AI, Quantum computing, EVs, and all the innovations that are happening rely on it. Solar can be a very small piece of the solution in situations where it can work.